Australasia’s leading entertainment technology exhibition opens in Darling Harbour, Sydney, from 4 February for three days. With over 120 exhibits across over 100,000 square feet of floor space, ENTECH is one of the key gathering points for technicians, engineers and designers from all over the region. Held every two years, this show also features a museum celebrating 30 years of entertainment technology - with never before seen video footage from the dark past, and numerous old photos of pioneering bands in Australia using very old equipment. There will be displays of the actual offending apparatus, including a genuine double four-way PA and old Australian-made amplifiers!

Entech runs from 4-6 February at the Sydney Darling Harbour Convention Centre. Entry is free after registrati

Stuart Thomson, formerly of Avalon Communications, has joined MEDC Ltd as the UK northern area sales manager for the Next Two range of loudspeakers. Thomson has had more than 20 years of experience in the communications industry with companies as diverse as Millbank Electronics, Planned Equipment Ltd and Avalon Communications as a proposals manager.

With involvement in major projects such as The Millenium Dome, Paddington Railway Station, London Underground, Newcastle United Stadium and a variety of other commercial installations from shopping centres to office blocks, Thomson brings a wealth of experience to the team. Thomson will assist Next Two customers through advising on loudspeaker layouts and working with third party VA/PA rack manufacturers to ensure a successful installation.

(Lee Baldock)

Wybron’s Eclipse II was honoured with an EDDY Award at the close of last year. This marks the second award for the product in 2001, which also collected an LDI Product of the Year Award earlier in the year.

The Eclipse II is a variable speed DMX controlled iris douser with linear control using a single motor. It can realistically fade fixtures that use non-dimmable arc and metal halide sources, products which are becoming more and more prevalent in lighting design today. One of three lighting accessories awarded the EDDY 2001, it was the smooth and seamless fades of Eclipse II which impressed the panel.

Keny Whitright of Wybron and theatre legend George Izenour collected the award at the 10th annual EDDY Awards at John Jay College Theatre in New York City. The EDDY Awards are presented annually to honour excellence in entertainment design and technology, as well as innovation i

South London-based Blackout Triple E, specialists in the design and manufacture of drapes, starcloths, tracking and production rigging equipment, has recently appointed Warren Connolly as hire and sales manager. He joins the busy rental department with 15 years’ sales and marketing experience, and will be promoting the company’s extensive product portfolio and range of production services to new and existing clients.

Warren will be liaising with producers, production companies and event organisers from the early planning stages of a project. He will be presenting creative and practical solutions for the most challenging special events, theatre productions, exhibitions, installations and conferences. Working closely with the company’s in house design, project management and technical support teams, he will help transform the most complex needs and ideas into reality. W

The Showman’s Show North will take place at The Great Yorkshire Showground, Harrogate, on Wednesday 6 and Thursday 7 March 2002, and is generating increasing interest across the North of the country.

Organisers Lance Publications report that stand space is being filled by a wide range of event suppliers based in the North, indicating that the exhibition will achieve its aim of providing a show focused on the needs of the region. The show is offering both indoor and outdoor exhibition space, utilizing the permanent facilities of the Great Yorkshire Showground, and will cater for a wide range of event suppliers and organizers.

The show has been borne out of response to questionnaires and requests from event professionals in the North of England and Scotland to bring Showman’s North to serve their part of the country. The visitor marketing campaign is focused on event and s

To further enhance the service Stage Electrics offers its West End and UK touring markets, the company has promoted Chris Patton to work alongside Matt Lloyd in developing and supporting current commitments and future initiatives. Patton will relocate from Birmingham, where he was responsible for developing local business through the theatre and event market. During his time with Stage Electrics he has been on-site with several major theatrical companies, including the Birmingham Royal Ballet.

Andrew Suggs has been promoted to branch account handler at the busy Bristol customer service centre. Suggs has worked for Stage Electrics for six years, covering all aspects of hire. Most recently he was a contract handler in the Bristol Warehouse, managing the co-ordination of all major hires leaving the building.

Tony Rhodes has joined the company as business development manager at the NEC

Autograph Sales Ltd, the UK distributors for Meyer Sound Laboratories, have begun the year with the launch of the latest Meyer Sound product - the MM4. Unlike Meyer Sound's more recent larger developments, the MM4 is a compact, wide-range loudspeaker, measuring only 102mm square.

This particular loudspeaker product is ideal when a high quality distributed sound system is required - in delay and fill applications in theatre-style venues, for example. The product has already found a home in France, on the much-talked about and newly-built Lyon Tramway. This latter is a sound art installation and the 88 MM4s can be found distributed along the 18 stations of the Tramway, transmitting ambient sounds and announcements when required.

Back in the UK, the product is being taken very seriously by several sound design consultants and installation companies and has been specified for a number of

Gareth Frankland and David Horsfield have taken over the operation of ACDC Lighting Systems Ltd, part of the Standel Dawman group of companies. The two have been key members of the management team for some time, and had been instrumental in developing ACDC into one of the UK’s largest manufacturers of cold cathode lighting systems.

The company will continue to work with designers to develop lighting solutions and will launch a new dynamic range of high intensity LED products later this year.

(Ruth Rossington)

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Ashwin Shah, chairman of the Myriad Group, has announced that, as part of the recent re-structuring of the Group, Richard Crowe has been appointed managing director of its Creative Staging subsidiary. Crowe, who was previously the sales and marketing director of the company, has been with Creative Staging for the past seven years, working in senior positions in the AV presentation industry since 1978. As well as fulfilling a full-time role at Creative Staging, Crowe will also play an active part in the future development of the whole Myriad Group. The Group recently restructured its nine business areas under the four main names of Myriad, Creative Staging, MAP and Visual Systems, offering a range of services for AV and IT communication and presentation.

(Ruth Rossington)

At Celestion’s HQ in Ipswich, Richard Vivian has been promoted to the position of marketing manager, Professional Product Division. Vivian joined Celestion from the R&D department of Turbosound three years ago. As Celestion’s product manager for Professional Systems, he has been instrumental in the development and promotion of a number of key products, including the CXi range of sound reinforcement loudspeaker systems, which has been successful in opening up new opportunities and markets for the Celestion brand.

With his detailed knowledge and experience of the professional audio and music industries, Vivian will now be taking on marketing responsibility for the entire Professional Division, which includes the growing range of Professional Component (raw-frame) loudspeakers. "Since I joined Celestion, I’ve been closely involved in the ongoing initiative to design

The exclusive Turnberry Hotel in Ayrshire has selected a Bose sound system as part of an upgrade of music systems throughout the hotel, spa and golf club house. The decision to go with Bose followed Jim Wilson’s (the Turnberry’s technical services manager), consultation with RA Communications of Stirling, to find a system that would deliver a full, rich sound, yet remain discreet.

A Bose Freespace 3 system, consisting of eight satellite cube speakers and two bass units, has been installed in the Turnberry Restaurant - a large room with traditional high ceilings. Freespace 3 systems are also employed in the Spa Terrace and Ailsa Lounge. The Turnberry has also chosen Bose for its new development of 12 luxury lodges and nine cottages, located in the grounds of the hotel. Bose Wave Radio/CDs have been spec’d in each of the lounges.

(Ruth Rossington)

Screenco has provided the LED screens for the ongoing TV programme Pop Idol. Set designer Andy Walmsley - whose company A1 Set was commissioned by Thames Television - provided Screenco with a brief to deliver the visual display element of the Pop Idol show.

The series - divided into three elements - consisted of various open auditions staged in hotel conference rooms throughout the country, followed by the ‘semi finals’ which took place at a staged ‘rehearsal room’ in Teddington Studios, ending with the ten week finals hosted at Fountain Studios in Wembley. Walmsley - who also designed the worldwide-copied ‘Who Wants to Be A Millionaire’ studio set - told us: "Pop Idol has been fascinating as a design brief, especially because the series has been in three parts. We started with a large video cube wall and one lonely plasma screen at Teddington S

At the close of last year, TC Group, the Danish parent company of TC Electronic, TCWorks and TC-Helicon, tabled a proposal to the shareholders of TGI plc to purchase their holdings in the company. That offer has now been formally accepted by the shareholders.

"I am very happy that the offer has been accepted," says Anders Fauerskov, CEO at TC Group. "The timing is perfect for a co-operation in technology like this, as the market of today clearly shows a need for an innovative fusion of technologies. Within the new TC Group, we now have the acoustics knowledge, driver technology, digital signal processing know-how, and amplification and power supply skills to make a major impact in the future market for integrated solutions."

TGI plc is a holding-company which covers four companies in the speaker market - Tannoy, Martin Audio, Lab Gruppen and GLL.

TC Group repr

The recent inclusion of Coemar within the Stanton Group, following the acquisition of a controlling interest in the company by Tracoman Inc, has led to the appointment of Animatec SA as the sole agent for Coemar Spa in Switzerland. Silvio Cibien of Animatec commented: "We are convinced that the strong synergy created by this distribution agreement will be a benefit for all our partners."

The move adds further strength to Animatec SA’s distribution portfolio, which also includes top lighting brand such as MA Lighting and Pulsar along with pro audio brands such as Ecler, Stanton and D.A.S. Audio.

(Lee Baldock)

Creative sound design and installation specialists CP Sound has completed its latest project in an on-going series of Zinc Bar & Grill venues for Conran Restaurants. Zinc Birmingham was a great challenge, as the background music system had to sound natural and all sound equipment had to be concealed without a wire in sight, blending seamlessly with the clean interior of the building. Thirdly, the downstairs DJ area - for parties, late bar nights and special occasions - had to avoid noise spillage into the main dining area above.

CP Sound’s Colin Pattenden reveals that they excelled themselves in the invisibility department. By the time the CP Sound team had finished the install, the only visible evidence of any sound was four neat volume controls by the downstairs bar. CP Sound utilised JBL speakers throughout, as they have in other Conran establishments, using speakers from the

Architectural lighting specialists i-Vision has completed a lighting design and supplied all necessary instruments and fixtures for the permanent illumination of Merseyside Police Authority’s (MPA) HQ in central Liverpool.

i-Vision was approached for the project - part of the ongoing scheme to light landmark building in the City of Liverpool - by Tony Woof, chief executive of Liverpool Architecture and Design Trust (LADT). I-Vision’s brief was to produce an interesting and cost-effective design to transform this somewhat imposing looking building into an attractive, integrated element of the landscape.

LADT has been overseeing the River of Light project, which started with a massive light, laser, projection and visuals show for the town on Millennium Eve. It completes with the lighting of eight key buildings in Liverpool - the last of which is the Police Authority HQ. Wit

London-based rental company FX Music has pledged its future in a world outside line array by making a major commitment to Martin Audio’s Wavefront 8 utility sound reinforcement system.According to Dave Beck, who has run FX Music with brother Alan since 1985, the 32 Wavefront 8C/24 x WSX system - purchased from the London office of LMC Audio - will give them capability to provide coverage of 1,000-seat auditoria, and tie them into the Martin Audio Wavefront rental network, which also includes Capital Sound Hire, Adlib Audio and CAV.

Explaining the rationale, Dave Beck said: "We specialise in single events for promoters such as Metropolis and SJM - whether it be rock ’n’ roll one-offs or classical spectaculars - as well as corporate shows. We don’t do sufficient arena work to warrant a line array but we wanted a system that was flexible, at the same time offe

Lighthouse LED video screens are at the heart of the installation of a custom-designed outdoor poster advertising screen at Bournemouth International Centre. Adaptable to both outdoor and indoor poster and retail sites, and capable of displaying images alongside ‘split screen’ text messages, the LED billboard concept is being pioneered in the UK by Lighthouse and, at Bournemouth, its integrator partner, Advantage Displays Ltd and screen owner/operator Inter-City Ads.

Nine panels of Lighthouse LVP20 (20mm pixel pitch) screen have been installed. Regular maintenance is provided by Lighthouse, but at the BIC, there is no facility to do this from within the building so to cater for this, a special mounting structure allows the screen to be hinged forward for maintenance work. The screen also has the ability to show two independently-controllable images on the screen at any one

During the night of Wednesday 23 January, a complete set of 32 Vari-Lite VL5 wash luminaires were stolen out of a trailer belonging to Belgium-based EML Productions. The fixtures were en route from Austria to Belgium, and it is believed that the theft occurred somewhere in Germany. The set included 32 VL5 luminaires with standard cabling, smart repeaters and truss hooks; they were packed in six six-hole black plastic Vari-Lite cases and two grey plastic Vari-Lite cable cases.

If anyone has any information regarding the whereabouts of this equipment, please contact Dirk Bosloirs at EML Productions NV in Brussels - telephone: +32 16 61 71 18 or at the e-mail address below.

(Lee Baldock)

Giant screen project manager Giles Conte, who recently left Screenco after six years with the company, has embarked on a freelance career as a project manager and technician. Giles takes with him a wealth of knowledge and expertise and is very optimistic about the future of LED, with its emergence as an information relay device and creative visual medium for both rock ‘n’ roll and the corporate market.

(Lee Baldock)

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, that most famous and best-loved of films, is coming to the London stage in a new production being billed as 'the most fantasmagorical stage musical in the history of everything.' And White Light and The Moving Light Company have been selected to provide the lighting equipment that will create the amazing effects required.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang the musical will open at the London Palladium in April, in a new production adapted from the film by Jeremy Sams and directed by Adrian Noble, the artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. The show is being designed by Anthony Ward, with lighting by multiple Olivier-award winner Mark Henderson - a nominee for this year's lighting Olivier.

With the show set to fill every inch of the Palladium stage - and beyond, with a sequence involving Chitty flying out and over the heads of the audience being planne

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